[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'A')gain, I think that most of what you describe as waste is just none of your business.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '
')
Note to gego, we share this planet.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'T')he founders of the USA listed liberty as the second highest value after life itself. These are my values. I am not responsible for your life or the lives of your family, nor are you responsible for me or my family.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '
')With freedom comes responsibility.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'f')reedom

[oilfreeandhappy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Elan_Rasa', 'O')bservation: We tend to waste oil and don't use it responsibly (especially the US).
This point can be argued, but when you consider that about 3% of the world's pop is using 25% of the world's oil, I consider most of it's use as wasteful. Consider that most of the oil goes towards transportation purposes and maintaining an infrastructure (suburbia) that is a waste of most of our resources.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oilfreeandhappy', '
')Elan Rosa - this post should answer your original question and remove all confusion. This is the "Me First" American attitude, and this is how most Americans think.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'T')he lesson was god first, others second, self third. This is a perversion of values, and a sure road to failure. It is biologically absurd. It is psychologically devistating to value selfabnegation. Only someone who does not value himself and his progeny would take such a position.

[gg3]

Apparently my critique of the entitlement mentality, and comparison to spoiled welfare queens who whine about the dole getting cut back, hit a little too close to home for at least one person here.

---

Gego is engaged in a form of psuedo-libertarianism that is also often seen in chronic stoners whose main concern is getting government out of (the patch of pot plants in) their back yards. It's all about rights, implicitly about entitlements, and never about responsibilities.

The libertarian principle that government (or the community at-large) should not interfere with agreements or actions among consenting adults, also necessarily includes the principle that consenting parties should not impose costs on non-consenting third parties. These costs are known as externalities.

Externalities can be displaced across space or across time. If I dump my garbage over the back fence, and the neighbor has to clean it up now, that's spatial displacement of an externality. If I simply let my garbage accumulate in my basement so that someone else has to clean it up after I die, that's time displacement.

Oldfashioned pollution was largely a spatial externality: the folks downstream had to suffer the impact or clean it up. Resource depletion and climate change are time-displaced externalities: like the profligate national debt, future generations will suffer the impact or have to clean it up.

What Gego fails utterly to realize is that, of the general set of possible choices one can make, there is a large (and increasing) subset of choices that impose externalized costs on others. Those "choices" are illegitimate. They are not exercises in freedom, they are exercises in fraud.

---

The key to Gego's arguement is right here: "This reminds me a Sunday School lesson that was forced upon me when I was a kid (I am a long time athiest, but I was sent to church by my parents). The lesson was god first, others second, self third."

He is still rebelling against his parents, and against his pastor. He is stuck at the child's stage of ego development that says "ME FIRST! ME! ME! MEEEEE!!!!"

In light of that, I think we can safely write off the rest of his arguements as rationalizations.

[CrudeAwakening]

What some people evidently fail to realise is that a social system based purely on individual rights is full of internal contradictions. Individual rights can, and often do, conflict, and I haven't yet come across a satisfactory explanation of how these conflicts are to be resolved within such a system.

What exactly are these rights, anyway, and who confers them? And do they really exist without associated responsibilities? One person's right is another person's responsibility to preserve that right.

I like to think I have a right not to be murdered; but this right is just the flip side of someone else's responsibility not to murder me. The notion of rights without responsibility is pure B.S.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', 'W')hat some people evidently fail to realise is that a social system based purely on individual rights is full of internal contradictions. Individual rights can, and often do, conflict, and I haven't yet come across a satisfactory explanation of how these conflicts are to be resolved within such a system.

What exactly are these rights, anyway, and who confers them? And do they really exist without associated responsibilities? One person's right is another person's responsibility to preserve that right.

I like to think I have a right not to be murdered; but this right is just the flip side of someone else's responsibility not to murder me. The notion of rights without responsibility is pure B.S.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'A')pparently my critique of the entitlement mentality, and comparison to spoiled welfare queens who whine about the dole getting cut back, hit a little too close to home for at least one person here.

---

Gego is engaged in a form of psuedo-libertarianism that is also often seen in chronic stoners whose main concern is getting government out of (the patch of pot plants in) their back yards. It's all about rights, implicitly about entitlements, and never about responsibilities.

The libertarian principle that government (or the community at-large) should not interfere with agreements or actions among consenting adults, also necessarily includes the principle that consenting parties should not impose costs on non-consenting third parties. These costs are known as externalities.

Externalities can be displaced across space or across time. If I dump my garbage over the back fence, and the neighbor has to clean it up now, that's spatial displacement of an externality. If I simply let my garbage accumulate in my basement so that someone else has to clean it up after I die, that's time displacement.

Oldfashioned pollution was largely a spatial externality: the folks downstream had to suffer the impact or clean it up. Resource depletion and climate change are time-displaced externalities: like the profligate national debt, future generations will suffer the impact or have to clean it up.

What Gego fails utterly to realize is that, of the general set of possible choices one can make, there is a large (and increasing) subset of choices that impose externalized costs on others. Those "choices" are illegitimate. They are not exercises in freedom, they are exercises in fraud.

---

The key to Gego's arguement is right here: "This reminds me a Sunday School lesson that was forced upon me when I was a kid (I am a long time athiest, but I was sent to church by my parents). The lesson was god first, others second, self third."

He is still rebelling against his parents, and against his pastor. He is stuck at the child's stage of ego development that says "ME FIRST! ME! ME! MEEEEE!!!!"

In light of that, I think we can safely write off the rest of his arguements as rationalizations.

[CrudeAwakening]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '
')I indicated that a free individual has a right to act as he pleases, so long as he does not commit an act of agression against another (such as murder in your example). Perhaps we are using responsibility in a different sense. When our Socialist friend, rogerhb, used "responsibility" I believe it was in the vein that we are responsible for our brothers welfare, which I beleive we are not. We may choose to be charitable but this is for our own benefit, not because it is our responsibility. I have no quarrel with the sense you use responsibility, which I regard an an moral obligation, i.e., not to commit acts of agression against others.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'W')hen our Socialist friend, rogerhb, used "responsibility" I believe it was in the vein that we are responsible for our brothers[sic] welfare, which I beleive[sic] we are not.

[gego]

rogerhb,

Your point about ants and bees is in the "exception that proves the rule" category, but you point is taken.

Other than that, you did not address the clear programming into humans and most other creatures to promote their own self interest. You condemmed this natural inclination, which you also posses, using the negative word, "greed".

When delpetion forces down the numbers of human population, how many humans are going to stand up and say, "Take me, and let that stranger over there live instead"?

There will be some few without the drive to live, but the majority I think will fight to be amongst those left standing.

As for the preceived self interest of those in the USA, I think that there are two groups of people here. One group consists of those descended from those who entered the territory unwilingly. The other group consists of those who came of their free will or are descended from those who came volintarily.

I think those who came of thier own free will are generally more assertive and agressive in their personalities than the average population. Certainly to uproot one's life and take the action to relocate required a certain amount of "get up and go", expecially compared to those who failed to do so and continued to suffer that which the immigrants escaped. How could this trait, on average, not be more prevelant in the descendents or the current immigrants?

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'O')ther than that, you did not address the clear programming into humans and most other creatures to promote their own self interest. You condemmed this natural inclination, which you also posses[sic], using the negative word, "greed".

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CrudeAwakening', '
')Ok, I see what you mean. But as Donne said, "No man is an island".

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '
')
We are back to the original argument that large use by one individual is waste, while smaller use by another is not.

When I was much younger and developing my own ideas about the world, I recognized that human labor by itself was of small value. I concluded this by comparing primitive labor intesive societies with societies with large investment in tools. The obvious difference is tools and the energy they use. I then observed that there was a large difference in the income levels in the USA, eventhough many of the high income earners had nothing to do with developing the tools. Most of the inventions were just stacking a little change on something invented by long dead persons. The income distribution seemed inequitable since the high income earners had just managed to capture a higher percentage of the wealth producted by someone elses invention. But later I realized that the world would be a much less developed place if the income from tools had been evenly distributed. With an equal income distrubution all income would be consumed currently and there would be nothing

[Vexed]

Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers. ~George Carlin

[oilfreeandhappy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '
')This reminds me a Sunday School lesson that was forced upon me when I was a kid (I am a long time athiest, but I was sent to church by my parents). The lesson was god first, others second, self third. This is a perversion of values, and a sure road to failure. It is biologically absurd. It is psychologically devistating to value selfabnegation. Only someone who does not value himself and his progeny would take such a position, and frankly, I think those who profess to do so are frauds, because when push comes to shove, they will put themselves first anyway. The egelatarian persona is just an expression of wanting to be taken care of by others.

Would you refuse to let your child or your spouse take a seat on a Titanic lifeboat in favor of someone else, or would you yourself stand on the deck rather than to take a seat yourself also? Give me a break.

As life turns out, it is the people whose tanks are half full who are the most greedy, while those with a full tank can afford to be generous and caring. The way to fill up one's tank is to exercise a high degree of caring and providing for one's self.

You think that selfishness is bad. Tell that to mother nature who has programmed into each creature the agressiveness to seek survival. If you truly think that greed is evil, then you are an evolutionary dead end, and rightfully so.